The Language Behind Dawkins’ Selfish Gene Theory :: Science Selfish Gene Theory Essays

The Language Behind Dawkins Selfish Gene system According to Michael Polanyi, our understanding of a concept depends in part on the wording we use to describe it. Connie Barlows book, From Gaia to Selfish Genes, looks at metaphors in science as integral parts of some new biological theories. One example is Richard Dawkins theory about the selfish ingredient, where he claims that the nearly basic unit of gentlemanity, the gene, is a selfish entity unto itself that exists outside the realm of our individual good and service of processs its own distinct purpose. Dawkins looks at the developingary process, how desoxyribonucleic acid replicates in forming human life, and the possibility that there is a social parallel to genetics, where human traits can be culturally transmitted. Dawkins, in the excerpts that Barlow has chosen, uses heavily metaphoric language to explain these scientific concepts to the general public. However, the language that Dawkins uses, while thought provoking, also carries some negative implications that extend beyond his theory. The selfish gene theory has many positive aspects, but its metaphors detract in certain ways from the scientific message of Richard Dawkins. The metaphor behind Dawkins theory can scoop up be described by his opening statement we are excerption machines-robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes (Barlow 193). Dawkins links the rude(a) behavior of unconscious bunches of nucleic acid (genes) to human behavior and personality by calling them selfish. His use of this term conjures up the image of a steal individual, capable of making decisions to help its own good and disregarding our needs. By calling human beings survival machines and robots, Dawkins suggests some serious moral implications regarding our existence. If we were exclusively robots, it would seem that we would be no longer responsible for our actions, as pack could attribute all evil to th e gene programmers who created these robots. Also, if our primary purpose were to serve as a survival machine for something else, life would seem insignificant. thaumaturgy Maynard Smith writes that Dawkins book is just about evolution, and not about ethical motive . . . or about the human sciences (195). However, the attempt to disengage the selfish gene theory from its moral implications is seriously undermined by Dawkins metaphors. The origin of the selfish gene, and of evolution itself, began in something Dawkins calls the primeval soup, where protein molecules, by pure chance, bonded together to form replicators, the ancestors of DNA (198).